NAIROBI, Kenya
Mr Adam Abdulla Mohamed, the Barclays Bank manager recently appointed as cabinet secretary, has resigned as a director of the financial institution. A brief dispatch to the Nairobi Securities Exchange from the bank signed by Company Secretary Judy Nyaga says Mr Mohamed formally resigned on 29 May 2013.
Mr Mohamed, who had been promoted at Barclays to Chief Administrative Officer with responsibilities for 10 African countries, is heading the ministry Industrialisation and Enterprise Development. He will be steering the government’s key agenda on fulfilling some of its promises, among them expanding the economy and promoting industries to create jobs and business opportunities.
Mr Mohammed’s move to join government caught many offguard. The former chief executive officer of Barclays Bank Kenya is among the largely professional team of 18 cabinet secretaries to run government affairs. The jubilee Coalition manifesto also promised to transform the Youth Enterprise Development Fund and Kenya Industrial Estates into a new national enterprise agency — Biashara Kenya.
He will also oversee tax breaks/holidays to young people to encourage them to initiate start-up businesses. These are no easy tasks, especially joining the two parastatals and making the painful decisions of sending some people home. An MBA graduate of Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Commerce graduate from the University of Nairobi, Mohamed’s 10-year stint as CEO at Barclays gives him the experience and knowledge to run a government ministry like a private enterprise.
Most analysts see him as one of the biggest catches from the private sector, yet still wonder what so motivated him to dump a lucrative regional job in a multination for a mere government ministry. Mohamed, it seems, has been raring to leave. Last year, he was among the favourites for the post of Commissioner General of the Kenya Revenue Authority to replace Michael Waweru, whose term had expired. He was beaten to it by John Njiraini, an insider, but left tongues wagging on the streets on whether he was denied the job on merit or other considerations.
Now he has found a way out of Barclays plaza to join the public service, a new world where the line between politics and business is often blurred. Many have their calculators out, trying to figure out his previous salary and what he is expected to earn as a cabinet secretary. Mohamed was among Kenya’s highly paid CEOs. The Salaries and Remuneration Commission has set the pay for cabinet secretaries at Sh840,000 and maximum of Sh1.12 million. Adan Mohamed, a father of five, was born on December 1963 in Mandera. He has been CEO Barclays Bank of Kenya for 10 years and worked in the bank’s branches in different parts of the world for 15 years.
Prior to joining the bank, he worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers for seven years after training in London as a chartered accountant. It will be interesting to watch how a corporate titan navigates mucky politics to deliver in such a key ministry for the government. Or is he, as some are wondering loudly, discreetly launching a political career?
